


The Invention of Clara Oswald

by delicatelyglitterywriter



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, DWFicExchange, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 16:42:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20011519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicatelyglitterywriter/pseuds/delicatelyglitterywriter
Summary: Everyone, on their 18th birthday, got a mysterious stack of sticky notes. 500, to be exact - Clara had counted them when she’d received her stack. No one knew where they came from, but everyone knew about them. According to the ‘soulmate rules’, as most people called them, you could write whatever you wanted on them, and at the note you’d written would magically appear somewhere in your soulmate’s line of sight during that day.The catch was that the 500 was all you got. Once they were gone, that was it.





	The Invention of Clara Oswald

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Goggsy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goggsy/gifts).



Clara Oswald wasn’t that interested in soulmates.

Perhaps it was simply because being a teacher didn’t leave much time for dating. Although, Clara blamed it mostly on the obsession many of her students had over the notion of soulmates. It seemed all they talked about all day long was soulmates, and if their soulmate was in their class, or if it might be a celebrity, or whatever they could think of. 

She had a hard time keeping them focused on schoolwork, and wasn’t always successful. Funnily enough, she’d noticed, that it only began happening when the kids started year 8. The year 7 kids didn’t pay it much attention. She should have pushed harder to get herself put on year 7, rather than year 8, English.

At least they didn’t have the sticky notes yet, Those didn’t come until a person was 18.

Everyone, on their 18th birthday, got a mysterious stack of sticky notes. 500, to be exact - Clara had counted them when she’d received her stack. No one knew where they came from, but everyone knew about them. According to the ‘soulmate rules’, as most people called them, you could write whatever you wanted on them, and at the note you’d written would magically appear somewhere in your soulmate’s line of sight during that day.

The catch was that the 500 was all you got. Once they were gone, that was it. 

Most people used their stack to try to seek out their soulmate, but it was difficult, because no one ever knew how many people would see the note, and so there were mixed results. There had been theories, and blogs, and even television shows to discuss how to use the notes to find your soulmate, but thus far, no one had managed to find the formula, or the magic words to make sure it worked.

That was why Clara had never touched her stack. 

Even though she wasn’t all that interested in soulmates, she couldn’t help but be curious as to hers was. But she wasn’t about to waste the precious notes. 

Clara thought about these things while eating some Mac ‘n’ Cheese on her couch in her flat, in her pyjamas. Her stack of sticky notes taunted her from the shelf, where they sat beside a clock. 

“No,” she said out loud to them, not caring that she was talking to an inanimate object. “I’m not going to.”

Still, the inkling that she should write something to her soulmate didn’t stop bothering her. She ate slower, as an attempt to distract herself. Eventually, she finished her dinner, and put her bowl down on the table with a huff, the urge to write something too strong to resist.

Grumpily, she got up and snatched a single note from the stack, taking it back to the table to write on it. She clicked open her pen, and paused. What should she write?

She leaned back, thinking of all the theories people had come up with as to what to write to her soulmate? Perhaps she could use one of those? She frowned and shook her head. She didn’t like any of those ideas. Her eyes swept the room, looking for an idea. 

Her eyes landed on her copy of  _ Wuthering Heights _ , and she sat up. A book. 

Clara’s lips curled into a smile as a plan formed in her mind. She could write out a sentence or two from a book, and wait for her soulmate to reply with the next line. She faltered. What book would her soulmate have been guaranteed to read? It would have to be popular enough that she knew her soulmate had read it, but not too popular so that someone who wasn’t her soulmate wrote back. 

But what book met both those criteria?

She sat and thought, and decided to pick a book that she decided should be a required read before dating her. After all, she didn’t want to date someone with a poor taste in books. But which book to choose?

She looked at her bookshelf and grinned when she saw a book she had loved since she first picked it up -  _ The Invention of Hugo Cabret _ . Happily, she jumped up and retrieved it off the shelf. She opened it to the first page with text, and pondered which sentence to write. Should she start at the beginning, or find a random sentence?

After thinking about it a minute, she decided it best to start at the start. She picked up her pen again, and copied down the first sentence. Then she clicked her pen shut, and put it, and the book, down on the table, beside the note, and waited. She wanted to see the exact moment it disappeared to travel to wherever her soulmate was.

However, a knock on the door interrupted her. Reluctantly, Clara got up and answered the door, accepting a gift of chocolate from her next door neighbour, the elderly Kathy, as an early birthday gift.

When Clara returned to her couch, the note was gone.

* * *

Yasmin Khan shrugged her jacket onto her shoulders, ready to get into bed and sleep until noon the next day. It had been a busy day, and she was exhausted. Glancing one last time over her desk to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, a single, green sticky note on the corner of her computer screen caught her attention. She frowned. She was pretty sure that hadn’t been there, before.

Curiosity piqued, she reached over to pluck the sticky note from where it rested. 

_ From his perch behind the clock, Hugo could see everything.  _

Yaz’s frown deepened. Those words seemed familiar, but she couldn’t figure out how. She pulled open her draw and jotted the words down on her notepad, tearing off the page and shoving it in her pocket. She had the strangest inkling the sticky note would disappear before long, and she wanted to remember the words.

She stuck the note back on the corner of her computer, then she went home. By the time she reached home again, she’d forgotten about the note, too annoyed at the detour she’d had to take because of roadworks. She fell onto her bed as soon as she had arrived and managed to get some pyjamas on, falling asleep instantly.

“ _ The Invention of Hugo Cabret _ !” she gasped, startling awake. Disoriented for a moment, she rubbed her eyes, and let herself remember where she was, and the note. 

She remembered where she’d seen the words before - a book she’d fallen in love with, the moment she’d read it.  _ The Invention of Hugo Cabret _ . She rolled over and glanced at her clock, reading it as half past eight. She sighed and flopped back, not ready to get up yet. She was glad today was Saturday, and that she didn’t have to work weekends.

She thought about who could have written that note, because she knew she didn’t. Was it one of her coworkers? No, it couldn’t have been. She’d have seen them.

Yaz sat upright as an idea came to mind.

_ Soulmate? _

She grinned to herself, keen for the idea of soulmates. There was only one way to test her theory. Bounding over to her bookshelf, she took her well-worn copy of the book, and the first note from her stack of sticky notes (she’d never known what to write), and wrote out the sentence that followed the one that had been written on the green sticky note.

She went to have breakfast, and when she came back, the sticky note was gone.

* * *

Clara paused at the noticeboard on her way to the staff room to have lunch, skimming over the notices, and she spotted a red sticky note in the bottom right corner. She leaned in, to get a closer look, and grinned when she saw what was written on it. The next sentence of  _ The Invention of Hugo Cabret _ .

She didn’t care if it was preemptive to say it worked; she was just too excited. She took the sticky note from where it was and tried to not skip to the staff room. She knew how brutal children could be.

* * *

The exchanging of sentences went on for almost three months, before Yaz plucked up the courage to write a little something extra on her note, asking to meet whoever was writing the notes. She put her name, and a date, time, and place for the recipient to come.

Yaz hoped her soulmate would show up. It would be awkward if they didn’t.

When she received the note, it was in the middle of class. Fortunately, the students were working quietly, so they didn’t mind her up the front as her heart flip-flopped in her stomach, and she fought a grin threatening to split her face. She was actually going to meet her soulmate. At least, she hoped the writer was her soulmate. 

It would be really upsetting if she wasn’t exchanging words with her soulmate. 

She glanced at her students, and confident they wouldn’t care what she was doing, she slipped her book out, copied out the next sentence, and added her name, and an acceptance of the invitation below. Once again, the note disappeared without her noticing.

* * *

The date came, and Clara stood across the road from the cafe they’d agreed to meet in. She was really nervous. What if she didn’t like her soulmate? She’d heard of it happening before. What if her soulmate didn’t like  _ her _ ? 

She wrung her hands, almost turning around and walking away. She stopped and shook her head, scolding herself. Most people weren’t that bad, and even if she didn’t take an instant liking to her soulmate, she could learn to love whoever it was. Sometimes friendships and romances took time. 

Clara took the time to decide she was willing to invest that time, and, with a newfound confidence, she took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders back, and marched across the street, before she could change her mind.

The cafe was warm and cozy, a nice contrast from the cold, but not bitter, wind outside. She couldn’t help but smile a little as she looked around for her soulmate. Yaz Khan, as she had learnt her soulmate’s name was, had good taste, both in books, and cafes. 

But where were they? 

They’d never bothered exchanging information about their appearances, which Clara mildly regretted now. How was she supposed to find who she was supposed to find if she didn’t even know what she was looking for? She doubted she could ask anyone about if someone named Yaz had come in; this cafe wasn’t Starbucks, they didn’t take customers’ names.

Clara peered into her bag, wondering if there was something in it that could help her. She spotted her copy of  _ The Invention of Hugo Cabret _ , she’d brought, just in case Yaz would have wanted to discuss it. Maybe if she held it up, and pretended to be reading, she’d get Yaz’s attention. It was a flimsy plan, but it was better than the alternative of going around and asking everyone if they were Yaz.

Sighing she found a place to lean, where she knew most of the cafe visitors would be able to see her, turned to the page they were up to, and read over the same few sentences, over and over again, not daring to go any further than they had.

“I’m sure that if it were working,” a voice said in front of her after about five minutes, “you could wind it up, put a piece of paper on the desk, and all those little parts would engage and cause the arm to move in such a way that it would write out some kind of note.”

Clara had looked up at the voice, and barely registered what was said. Before her stood one of the most gorgeous women she’d ever seen. Brown skin, very dark brown hair, and an incredible sense of fashion. She didn’t even realise her mouth was hanging open until the woman reached up and pushed it shut. Clara noticed she had been reading from a well-worn copy of the same book. It must be Yaz.

“Yaz Khan?” Clara asked when she got her voice back. Yaz grinned at her and closed her book.

“Yep. You’re Clara?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you, Clara,” Yaz said with a confidence Clara did not feel. 

“Uh, yeah, er, you too,” Clara mumbled out, feeling her cheeks flush red with embarrassment at her lack of words. She was usually better than this. Yaz just laughed, seeing her red cheeks.

“Come on. Let’s eat something.”

She led Clara over to a table she’d gotten for them. By the time she was sitting, she’d gotten over her initial shock, and was able to say something without stumbling over her words.

“I’m really glad my idea of the book worked,” she said, after Yaz had returned from ordering for them.

“Me too.” Yaz grinned at her, and Clara felt her heart skip a book. “It’s such a good book.”

“It is!” Clara agreed enthusiastically, going off on a tangent about what she loved about it. Yaz seemed content to sit there and listen, so Clara didn’t stop until she ran out of things to say.

“You sound like an English teacher,” Yaz half-observed, half-joked after a short silence following Clara’s speech. Clara bit her lip, looking down at the table.

“I am an English teacher.”

“Really?”

Clara’s head shot up. “Hey, don’t sound so surprised. You were the one who suggested it.”

“Touche.”

Their food was served to them, and Clara wasted no time in digging into hers. She was glad Yaz did the same. Clearly a girl unashamed of eating, just as she was. Clara liked that.

“So, what’s your job?”

“I’m a police officer.”

Clara raised her eyes. She wouldn’t have guessed that, but now that she’d been told, it made sense. 

“What’s that like?” she asked, when she thought of a question (well, an appropriate question) to ask about it. Yaz sighed.

“Boring. I’m often just stuck on traffic stuff. Mostly parking disputes. It’s dull, and like dealing with whiny five-year-olds fighting.”

“But you get to give out tickets, yeah? That must be slightly less boring.”

Yaz breathed a laugh. “Yeah, sometimes. Although, surprisingly, people are very good at following traffic rules when they see a cop car on the road.”

Clara laughed. She knew that feeling well. Although, she didn’t think she’d mind getting a ticket (amongst other things) from Yaz. She was about to scold herself for her unsavoury thoughts when Yaz’s voice cut in.

“Where’d that come from?” Yaz laughed.

“D-Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes,” Yaz giggled, her eyes squeezed shut with merriment. For the third time since they’d met, Clara blushed, her face turning as red as a tomato.

“I, uh, didn’t mean to say that out loud,” she muttered, desperately trying to recover herself. Eventually, Yaz got her laughter under control and wiped the tears from her eyes. Clara avoided looking directly at her.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Yaz assured her, reaching across the table to rest a hand on Clara’s. “I came quite close to saying some similar stuff.”

Clara looked up, her eyebrows raised as high as they could, and a smirk on her face, but she didn’t laugh. Instead, she swallowed her giggles and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“I suppose we can say we’re equally as smitten, huh?”

Yaz smiled. “Yeah. It’s weird, I only met you, like, five minutes ago, and barely know anything about you, but I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

“Well, I read this theory once on why we have soulmates, and it basically said that a soulmate was someone we felt like we’d known our whole lives, even if we just met them.”

Yaz nodded in agreement. “But why would that be in a theory about  _ why _ we have soulmates? Wouldn’t that be in something about what soulmates are?”

“You gotta define your terms,” Clara countered. “Essay writing 101.”

“Alright, point taken.”

The two lapsed into a comfortable silence, simply eating and drinking, and sneaking occasional glances at each other. Yaz was the first one to break the silence.

“I should get going. Got some stuff to do.”

“Yeah, me too,” Clara sighed. 

“Let’s exchange phone numbers,” Yaz suggested. Clara readily agreed, and they exchanged a hug as they left.

“I’ll text you later,” Clara promised. Yaz grinned.

“I look forward to it.”

Later that evening, Clara stayed true to her word and texts Yaz, saying how glad she was to have Yaz as her soulmate, and that she had a great time. She and Yaz chatted for a little while, until both got too tired to continue, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Clara sent a good morning text, and went to have breakfast, only stopping when she noticed her book on the table. She looked up to where she kept her sticky notes, deciding that they didn’t have to stop their sticky note tradition. Smiling to herself, Clara wrote a note before going to eat breakfast. 

Later that day, a note appeared on Yaz’s dash following yet another parking dispute. She laughed out loud.

_ Hey, how hard would it be to arrest yourself? B/c you have stolen my heart. _

She slid out her phone and texted Clara.

_ It would have been easier to text me, you know. _

Clara’s answer came through a few minutes later.

_ I know. It’s just sometimes more fun to write notes. But you still didn’t answer my question. _

Yaz bit her lip to try to reign in her smile, and blushed as she texted back.

_ Really quite difficult. But if you’re really that keen for me to see justice, I could come over and teach you how to use a pair of handcuffs the same way the police do, and you could do it yourself. _

Clara sent through a string of emojis. A week later, and several hundred texts and sticky note messages later, and Yaz and Clara found themselves in Clara’s apartment, chasing each other around, trying to cuff each other. Suffice to say, Clara never found herself disinterested in soulmates ever again.


End file.
